


Priceless Find at an Alien Bazaar

by gothula



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen, Sappy, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-05
Updated: 2012-07-05
Packaged: 2017-11-09 06:19:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/452288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gothula/pseuds/gothula
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Only one in a hundred trips with the Doctor is really dangerous. Well, one in fifty. Not more than one out of every dozen.</p><p>While he and Donna Noble spend the day rummaging through an alien bazaar, The Doctor finds one of the most priceless things in the universe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Priceless Find at an Alien Bazaar

**Author's Note:**

> No Beta. No plot.

"You don't mind do you?" The Doctor asked for the third time. He'd promised her a relaxing day of browsing the Cadavera Bazaar, but after seeing that old, broken spanner casing all he could think about was replacing his laser spanner. He could easily build one, but owning a vintage laser spanner with the little orange stripe on the handle would be like a man from Donna's time getting a mint condition hot rod from the middle of the 20th century. It was about history and a little ego, and he'd still have his if not for Emmeline Pankhurst. That cheeky woman - Oh, Donna would have loved her!

"Course I don't mind!" She smacked his elbow companionably and turned her attention to the junk laden table before them. "You want to find a laser spanner: handle like a spatula, wide fork at one end." she parroted his description back at him. "I can keep an eye out for one while I browse." Donna clucked her tongue and turned over a taxidermied Coos beetle and then poked at an assorted box of Pystum coils.

He wasn't sure how helpful she'd actually be as she studied a Pystum coil like it was fascinating and barely glanced at a Kyrtun knob near the bottom of the box, but the thought really did count sometimes. "Thanks."

"Hey, what's a best mate for?"

With those words, she stretched his insides further than any before her had ever managed: his Donna - his best mate. He'd never actually had one of those before. Even on Gallifrey he had been something of an oddity - more clever and curious than most, unafraid to speak his mind, and completely, utterly unambitious. The first two points had kept him out of most social circles and the last made him something of an alien to his own people who wouldn't be TimeLords if not for their ambitions. 

He had always been a lonely man - even a lonely child. No one was like him, no one saw the universe in his way and unlike his peers he didn't need them to see it his way - just to accept how he saw it. He'd never found anyone to match his curiosity and hunger for adventure except Master, but they were more like rivals than friends. Every moment was a competition, a show of brilliance and cunning. Conversations were battlegrounds with every word part of some bigger war.

Donna was so completely different. Her sharpest barb had all the sting of a jabbed finger - tickling a rib. She talked almost as much as he did - rambled on about nonsense and nothing with no concern for subtext and subtly. Unlike many of his human companions, she loved him, adored him, but she wasn't in love - not even a little. There was no demand, no pleading or aching of love-unrequited in her eyes when she smiled at him. She'd tease him a little sometimes - just as he could tease her - but neither of them had to worry about misunderstandings or hurt feelings over a harmless flirt now and again. 

He lost track of how long they'd been shopping when she waved to him from across the busy market street and held up a metal device that looked like a gardening tool. They were looking for a laser spanner not the butt of a burn- out particle decelerator, but she was smiling at him like she'd just won a prize. Damned if he wanted anything to change that. 

The Doctor crossed the street and scooted into the narrow space beside her in the crowd. She looked up at him with her ginger hair falling over her eyes, and he felt that tug of contentment that had become as familiar as the berry-scent of her shampoo. "Well, not a spanner, but I have been looking all over for one of these." He winked at the salesman, knowing he was going to pay outrageously for the bit of space junk, but her beaming smile was worth every credit. Donna's eyes narrowed for half a second, and he knew he had to distract her or she'd have him. She was wonderfully sharp like that sometimes. Sniffing the air like a hound, he turned a little circle. "Oh, do you smell that?"

She sniffed the air and then turned her back to the booth. "Oo. Is that someone having a fry up?"

"Food vendors must be upwind," the Doctor paid a dozen times what the pistol-part was worth and had her stuff it into the massive handbag she on her arm. He had tried to tell her that he'd made her purses bigger on the inside, but she liked the big bags for some of their trips. To be honest, he loved the sight of her with a big bag hanging over her hip - like they really were normal tourists just taking in the sights and traveling about on holiday, and she was prepared for anything. 

Donna Noble, adventurer, space and time traveler, best mate. 

He offered her his elbow with a huge smile of his own. "Fancy a lunch on an alien street, Donna Noble?"

"Yes, I do, Spaceman," She hooked her wrist around the crook of his arm and they set off - one burnt out bit of space junk heavier, but several hundred years lighter.


End file.
